Quotes by American Authors - Page 3396

Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.
Mark Twain
That's the thing about life. A lot of the time, it isn't easy at all. We just have to try to make the best of it.
Nicholas Sparks
What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.
Chuck Palahniuk
Going back to something is harder than you think.
Mitch Albom
Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is.
Henry Miller
Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one.
Arthur Golden
Life isn’t about what you get, it’s about what you DO with what you get.
Stephanie Perkins
no, no, it's not all random, if it really was all random, the universe would abandon us completely. and the universe doesn't. it takes care of its most fragile creations in ways we can't see. like with parents who adore you blindly. and a big sister who feels guilty for being human over you. and a little gravelly-voiced kid whose friends have left him over you. and even a pink-haired girl who carries your picture in her wallet. maybe it is a lottery, but the universe makes it all even out in the end. the universe takes care of all its birds.
R.J. Palacio
Instructions for freedom":1. Life's metaphors are God's instructions.2. You have just climbed up and above the roof, there is nothing between you and the Infinite; now, let go.3. The day is ending, it's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go.4. Your wish for resolution was a prayer. You are being here is God's response, let go and watch the stars came out, in the inside and in the outside.5. With all your heart ask for Grace and let go. 6. With all your heart forgive him, forgive yourself and let him go.7. Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering then, let go.8. Watch the heat of day pass into the cold night, let go.9. When the Karma of a relationship is done, only Love remains. It's safe, let go.10. When the past has past from you at last, let go.. then, climb down and begin the rest of your life with great joy.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Too many people seem to believe that silence was a void that needed to be filled, even if nothing important was said.
Nicholas Sparks
We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.
Stephen King
Life is like a box of crayons. Most people are the 8 color boxes, but what you're really looking for are the 64 color boxes with the sharpeners on the back. I fancy myself to be a 64 color box, though I've got a few missing. It's okay though, because I've got some more vibrant colors like periwinkle at my disposal. I have a bit of a problem though in that I can only meet the 8 color boxes. Does anyone else have that problem? I mean there are so many different colors of life, of feeling, of articulation. So when I meet someone who's an 8 color type...I'm like, hey girl, Magenta! and she's like, oh, you mean purple! and she goes off on her purple thing, and I'm like, no I want Magenta!
John Mayer
Be where you are, stop over-thinking, and focus on what you are doing.
Roy T. Bennett
Create a vision for the life you really want and then work relentlessly towards making it a reality.
Roy T. Bennett
By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your fucking life.
Tina Fey
I'm sure you think that I don't understand what you're going through, but I do. It's just that sometimes, our future is dictated by what we are, opposed to what we want.
Nicholas Sparks
When we're connected to others, we become better people.
Randy Pausch
I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.
Lois Lowry
A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn.
Helen Keller
I really think I write about everyday life. I don't think I'm quite as odd as others say I am. Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring.
Edward Gorey
The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.
Alan W. Watts
My life is a reading list.
John Irving
I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.
Anthony Robbins
How would your life be different if…You stopped worrying about things you can’t control and started focusing on the things you can? Let today be the day…You free yourself from fruitless worry, seize the day and take effective action on things you can change.
Steve Maraboli
My point is, life is about balance. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The pina and the colada.
Ellen DeGeneres
Sharing tales of those we've lost is how we keep from really losing them.
Mitch Albom
Do not let your negative thoughts have power over you because those thoughts will end up controlling your life. No one can live a positive life with a negative mind.
Roy T. Bennett
No matter how much experience you have, there’s always something new you can learn and room for improvement.
Roy T. Bennett
Failures are the stairs we climb to reach success.
Roy T. Bennett
Life is a bowl of cherries. Some cherries are rotten while others are good; its your job to throw out the rotten ones and forget about them while you enjoy eating the ones that are good! There are two kinds of people: those who choose to throw out the good cherries and wallow in all the rotten ones, and those who choose to throw out all the rotten ones and savor all the good ones.
C. JoyBell C.
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."]
Anne Bradstreet
All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.
Martha Graham
Changing is what people do when they have no options left.
Holly Black
In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things.
Khaled Hosseini
I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.
Thomas Jefferson
I am nothing more than the consequence of catastrophe.
Tahereh Mafi
It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, but it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: music, laughter,the physics of falling leaves, automobiles, holding hands,the scent of rain, the concept of subway trains... if only one could leave this life slowly!
Roman Payne
Let all of life be an unfettered howl.
Vladimir Nabokov
Spending time with God is the key to our strength and success in all areas of life. Be sure that you never try to work God into your schedule, but always work your schedule around Him.
Joyce Meyer
I'm afraid of time... I mean, I'm afraid of not having enough time. Not enough time to understand people, how they really are, or to be understood myself. I'm afraid of the quick judgements or mistakes everybody makes. You can't fix them without time. I'm afraid of seeing snapshots, not movies.
Ann Brashares
I don’t really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits
Anaïs Nin
I think the highest and lowest points are the important ones. Anything else is just...in between.
Jim Morrison
I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.
Garrison Keillor
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
Langston Hughes
Life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
Sarah Kay
In case you never get a second chance: don't be afraid!" "And what if you do get a second chance?" "You take it!
C. JoyBell C.
Singing in the rain. I'm singing in the rain. And it's such a fucking glorious feeling. An unexpected downpour and I am just giving myself into it. Because what the fuck else can you do? Run for cover? Shriek and curse? No--when the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it because if you can make yourself happy in the rain, then you're doing pretty alright in life.
David Levithan
Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.
Brian Tracy
In the Book of Life, The answers aren't in the back.
Charles M. Schulz
I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Steve Jobs
No one ever does live happily ever after, but we leave the children to find that out for themselves.
Stephen King
That’s how I know they are dreams. Because the simple and plain and everyday things are the ones that we can never have. (Cassia Reyes)
Ally Condie
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Max Ehrmann
When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don't you do the same?
Anthony Doerr
Youth offers the promise of happiness, but life offers the realities of grief.
Nicholas Sparks
There's always another storm. It's the way the world works. Snowstorms, rainstorms, windstorms, sandstorms, and firestorms. Some are fierce and others are small. You have to deal with each one separately, but you need to keep an eye on whats brewing for tomorrow.
Maria V. Snyder
Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.
Harper Lee
I love you. I hate you. I like you. I hate you. I love you. I think you’re stupid. I think you’re a loser. I think you’re wonderful. I want to be with you. I don’t want to be with you. I would never date you. I hate you. I love you…..I think the madness started the moment we met and you shook my hand. Did you have a disease or something?
Shannon L. Alder
About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others—while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity—so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities… but there, there. Enough.
Christopher Hitchens
I'll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don't choose. We'll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn't carry us. There's nothing to do but salute it from the shore.
Cheryl Strayed